multiple news servers...

[Paine]

Hi,
I'm a usenet noob.
I have access to usenet trough my isp's newsserver.
My question is: is it usefull to have multiple newsservers or do all news
servers serve the same news ?

'Lo Ken --

This depends on your ISP's newsserver and your own interests.
If your ISP is small, then its newsserver may not carry as many
newsgroups as the larger ISPs. Also, the large ISPs will allow
posted articles to remain on their servers for longer periods than
the small ISPs.

As another poster mentioned, some ISPs don't carry the binary
(picture) groups where images can be up- and downloaded. As
you may know, images can take up a lot of server space.

One last thing... every once in awhile, i talk to someone in one
newsgroup who also likes another newsgroup. Then i find that
my ISP does not carry that group. I then ask my ISP to start
carrying that newsgroup and they start carrying it. Most ISPs
will oblige these requests because they don't want to lose you
as a customer. One exception might be the .edu servers. These
are usually school servers, and they generally refuse to carry
any alt.* newsgroups.

hth

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

[Paine]

Hi,
I'm a usenet noob.
I have access to usenet trough my isp's newsserver.
My question is: is it usefull to have multiple newsservers or do
all news servers serve the same news ?

In theory they all serve the same news. However some are better than
others - the bad ones miss a lot of posts. You'll have to see how your
ISP's newsserver does for a while, and then subscribe to a different
one if you aren't seeing all the posts. (You'll know because you'll see
replies when you never saw the original message, people will refer to
messages you never saw, etc.)
--
---->Sagittaria<----
If God told you he didn't exist, would you believe him?

'Lo Sagittaria --

Just fyi... another reason you will sometimes see responses but
not see the original posted article is because some people will
read a post in one newsgroup, and then respond to it in another
newsgroup that they like. It's usually easy to add other groups
to the newsgroup header, just as i have done with this post.

When I began this response, the newsgroup header contained
only the group you posted to... alt.usenet.newbies. I added
two other groups by typing them in as follows...

alt.usenet.newbies,alt.newbie,alt.newbies

...and this my response post will show up in both of the other
groups even though your post will not. (Note that i used a
comma to separate the newsgroups and *no* spaces.) For
those Gentle Readers who don't know, this is called...

crossposting (or sometimes xposting)

Another example... in another group i like to read and post in,
alt.astronomy, there is a poster called Nightbat who also likes
to read the group sci.astro. Nightbat sometimes crossposts a
response he made in sci.astro to alt.astronomy. So i sometimes
see a response from him but not the original post that was made
in sci.astro. (Nightbat usually quotes the original post when he
writes his response.)

If you ever have a question whether or not your posts are getting
through to one of your newsgroups, you might try subscribing to
either or both of these...

alt.test
misc.test

Both of these test newsgroups have bots that will automatically
respond to your post letting you know that you got through.

Another thing i might add to your helpful response to Ken is
that the smaller ISPs are often very slow getting your post on
their server. So if your post does not show up immediately or
soon thereafter, then this might be why. Even the larger ISPs
sometimes have technical problems, so if a post does not show
up soon after you click on SEND, you might want to give it a
little time before you repost.

hth

happy days and...
starry starry nights!